Cole Hargrove, 58, retired Wayne National Forest ranger, had held the same grudge for 36 years. He’d spent most of those years blaming Mara Bennett for getting him kicked off the Ironton High varsity football team senior year, convinced she’d ratted to the principal about the underage camping trip he’d taken with her older sister Lila, his girlfriend at the time. Twice divorced, he’d grown stubborn in his later years, prone to clinging to old slights rather than digging for the truth, and he’d not spoken a full sentence to Mara since graduation, even when their paths crossed at the grocery store or the annual fire department beer garden, the small town’s biggest summer fundraiser. The whole county knew the two of them didn’t mix, so when he spotted her weaving through the picnic tables at this year’s event, plastic cup of peach seltzer in hand, he tensed, ready to make a break for the parking lot. His old fire department buddy had run off to grab another round of Pabst, though, so he was stuck, leaning against a splintered oak table, the smell of grilled brats and charcoal curling through the canvas tent, peanut shells crunching under his scuffed work boots.
She was closer than he realized before she bumped his elbow, his beer sloshing over the rim to soak the cuff of his faded plaid flannel. “Shit, sorry Cole,” she said, leaning in immediately, dabbing at the wet fabric with a crumpled paper napkin she pulled from her jeans pocket. Her thumb brushed the hair on his forearm, and he flinched first, then froze—she had a rough callus on the pad of her thumb, he remembered, from the pottery business she ran out of the old barn on her late husband’s farm. For half a second he wanted to yank his arm away, to snap that he was fine, to tell her to go bother someone else, but then he caught the scent of her perfume, lavender and sweet orange, the same scent he’d caught lingering on the passenger seat of his old pickup after he’d given her a ride home from a basketball game once, back when he was still dating Lila. Disgust at the very idea of liking anything about her warred with a stupid, quiet pull low in his gut, the same pull he’d ignored back then, too loyal to Lila to admit he’d always liked looking at Mara more, liked her dry wit and the way she didn’t fawn over him like every other girl on the football team’s arm.
She didn’t leave when she was done dabbing at his sleeve. She slid onto the bench across from him, propping her chin in one hand, the fairy lights strung across the tent gilding the edges of her wavy gray-streaked brown hair. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you for decades,” she said, no preamble, and he raised an eyebrow, sipping his beer to hide how off-balance he was. She admitted it had been Lila who ratted, not her. Lila had been mad Cole had bailed on their homecoming afterparty plans to help a stranded hiker on his weekend ranger gig, so she’d told the principal about the camping trip, then told Cole Mara had done it. Mara had been 16 back then, scared of her older sister, scared Lila would tell their strict parents she’d been sneaking out to see a boy from the next town over, so she’d never corrected him.
He sat quiet for a full minute, processing, the hum of the old country cover band fading to background noise. He felt stupid, for wasting 36 years mad at the wrong person, for missing out on talking to the girl he’d secretly thought was the funniest, sharpest person in his graduating class. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and her knee brushed his under the wood, warm through the denim of their jeans. He didn’t move away. She teased him about the time he’d tripped over his own cleats at the 1986 homecoming game, and he laughed, loud enough that a few people at the next table glanced over. He hadn’t laughed that easy since his second divorce finalized three years prior, had spent most of his time since fixing up his cabin and volunteering at the fire department, avoiding any kind of social interaction that didn’t involve power tools or fire suppression training. She pointed out that the band was playing the same slow dance they’d played at that homecoming, the one he’d danced half of with Lila before he’d snuck off to get a soda and ended up talking to Mara by the punch bowl for 20 minutes. “I remember you could dance,” she said, holding out her hand, her nails chipped with blue glaze from her pottery work. “C’mon.”
He hesitated, then took her hand. Her palm was warm, a little rough, calluses matching his from decades of hauling trail supplies and chopping firewood. They didn’t dance too close at first, but when a group of drunk teens stumbled past them, she stepped into him to avoid getting knocked over, her chest pressing to his, her hair brushing his jawline when she laughed. He could feel the heat radiating off her through their clothes, hear her breath catch a little when he rested his hand on the small of her back to steady her. He’d forgotten how hazel her eyes were, flecked with gold, crinkled at the corners when she smiled. The taboo of it hummed under his skin—everyone in town knew they were supposed to hate each other, knew Mara was his ex-girlfriend’s little sister, knew it was messy to even be talking this long. But the thrill of it was sharper than any grudge, better than any beer he’d drunk all night.
When the song ended, they stepped out of the tent to get air, the July night cool on his overheated cheeks, fireflies blinking low over the grass of the fairground. She leaned against the wooden fence lining the parking lot, tilting her head up at him, and he didn’t overthink it. He leaned down and kissed her, soft, slow, not like the rushed fumbling he remembered from high school, like they had all the time in the world. She tasted like peach seltzer and mint, her hand coming up to cup the side of his face, her thumb brushing the stubble on his jaw. When they pulled back, she grinned, the same lopsided grin he’d thought about for weeks after that punch bowl conversation, and said she’d been waiting to do that since 1987. He asked her if she wanted to get pancakes at the 24-hour diner on Route 52 tomorrow, the one with the homemade blueberry syrup he’d been eating since he was a kid, and she said yes, no hesitation.
He walked her to her beat-up old Ford pickup, opened the driver’s side door for her, and she squeezed his hand once before she climbed in, the radio inside blaring an old George Strait song. He stood in the gravel parking lot long after her taillights had rounded the corner, finishing the last sip of his warm beer, and kicked a loose chunk of limestone across the asphalt.
